Actual design question.

Yes, but then I don't have a state-guaranteed monopoly on 10 million customers.

California is trying to outlaw incandescent bulbs. Thank goodness for UPS.

John

Its economy is bigger than that of a lot of actual countries.

*All* OTC CFLs have electronic ballasts; those in the US are made to run on 120VAC. Coleman lantern and trailer fluroescent lamps also have electronic ballasts; those in the US are made to run on 6VDC or 12VDC. The actual *tube* itself must have ~32V across it to keep the arc alive, *assuming* one used a high voltage to strike that arc.

That happens with both AC and DC arc designs.

What you do, is keep the receipt *and* package(s), and when a full-package-worth of bulbs are dead, go back for a replacement. Generally, the company that made them is no longer in business, but you can get replacements (in the US, it is the law that backs you up). You will be lucky if they last 2-3 years.

Most brands and styles are clearly marked "for indoor use only".

One of our national labs, Lawrence Livermore I think, came up with a filament coating that shifted emission out of the IR and into the visible, by some big factor. I think maybe the new GE incandescents do something like that. A surface with high visible-wavelength emissivity and low emissivity in the IR could in theory give us an almost 100% efficient incandescent, with losses reduced mostly to heat transmission in the fill gas and leads.

Should be interesting.

John